Hideo Kojima Keynoting GDC

Hideo Kojima will be making his first-ever keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, giving a talk called "Solid Game Design: Making the 'Impossible' Possible."

The address, which will mark Kojima's debut at GDC, will "focus on conquering various development obstacles with creative game design, using the driving game design philosophies behind the Metal Gear series as reference."

We can't gleam much for that title alone, but "creative game design" has always been one of Kojima's hallmarks, so maybe he'll be talking about some of the wackier things he's done in games. The official GDC listing makes note of Kojima's propensity to design by "breaking the 'fourth wall' and forcing the player to interact with the game in ways outside of traditional gameplay" so perhaps his talk will shed some light on that habit. Maybe he'll even explain where got the idea for the infamous Psycho Mantis scene from Metal Gear Solid 1.

Kojima's debut at GDC has been a long time coming. Apparently the auteur has been aloof when it comes to sharing his secrets with the GDC crowd. "The Game Developers Conference has invited Hideo Kojima to keynote every year for as long as I can remember, so we couldn't be more excited that, at long last, he feels that it is time for him to address the game development community," GDC director Meggan Scavio said. "The anticipation is already huge to see how one of the community's most revered and elusive creators will inspire attendees to further push the limits of game development." Why Kojima's decided to come out to sunny San Francisco now and make his debut is a mystery. Maybe he's got something new and interesting to tell us about?

Kojima's keynote will take place on Thursday, March 26th, the day after Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's keynote on "Discovering New Development Opportunities." I imagine that Kojima's PowerPoint, if he designs presentations like he designs his games, will break the fourth wall at least five more times than Iwata's will. It will also include lengthy walls of text in between all the cool and interesting slides. That's how Kojima rolls.